What's a Quilt with Two Missing Blocks?

I finally put together my Tea Party blocks which I featured here in 2018 - one a month. But, for some reason I didn't count yesterday when I put them into a quilt. I'm missing the November and December blocks! I didn't realize it until today - too late!

Quilt top is done and I'm NOT going to rip it apart to add the two renegade blocks. They are shamelessly hiding in my sewing room getting a big kick out of giving me more gray hair.

Here is the quilt. Very organic. Blocks are a variety of sizes, but the patterns I gave here were for a standard 10" finished size. I don't want to give you gray hairs!

My Tea Party Quilt: 49" x 56"

I compiled all 12 blocks AND color photos of each block into a 25 page pdf and I offer it on Etsy. (Remember, I can no longer use Craftsy, so all those individual blocks are gone.)

If you want to see the various posts of these blocks, and quite a few process shots of how I constructed them, go to the Search window over on the right sidebar here and look for them in each month for 2018. Or, you can find the links when you click on "2018 Tea Party" as a link in "labels.

You can get more info about this 25 page pdf by visiting the link (2018 Tea Party Blocks).

And if you happen to see a runaway Crock or Candy Dish, will you let them know I miss them!?!

The Red Hat 2019 BOM is Here!

I've been working on these blocks for two weeks now (not full-time, of course!). I wanted to have all 9 blocks finished before launching this new Block of the Month.

Here is the Stepping Out Quilt that uses the 5 different blocks (two are repeated). As I said last week, this was first a set of blocks I designed for Intown Quilters in Atlanta, Georgia in 2004. Then I incorporated them into my Block a Day calendars. I'm now shopping for a perfect blue for those sashings.

Stepping Out Quilt: 39" x 39". Block Size: 9"

These blocks are not free because, as you may remember, I've lost my Craftsy shop and am slowly migrating over to Etsy. I get charged fees on Etsy (and I am not complaining; that's how business runs!) These blocks will be $1.00 for the month in which they run. After that, they will be $3.00. I did that last year and I had no complaints. This was a lot of work (but fun work!)

Here is my Red Hat block.

January Block: The Red Hat

I gave this block away and got somewhat confused in my sewing room and began to make a second one using hot pink fabrics. But, you will understand my steps even if I used the wrong fabric (for awhile).

Freezer paper template:

Transfer template onto freezer paper and cut out; iron to right side of fabric

Iron fusible interfacing to wrong side of fabric. This will stabilize the raw edges for my machine appliqué.

I used fusible interfacing on the wrong side

Hat cut out; ready to cut out the purple plume

Two parts to the hat blocks

 Place and partially stitch the red hat; ready to add purple plume

Two hat parts

 I added the dimensional stitching on the hat, as you can see, before I added the purple plume.

Pinned and stitched

 Final hat in red. Buttons are added. You could just as easily stitch small yellow circles of fabric.

First block: Red Hat in the Stepping Out Quilt

The first installment of this BOM includes a picture of the Stepping Out Quilt (digital) and fabric requirements. It is a 2 page pdf with the full size, traceable templates for this Red Hat block.

Stepping Out Quilt and Red Hat Block

Quilting with Plaids and Stripes - and Giveaway!

Today I share a short tutorial on the Sew In Love With Fabric blog (Benartex) on making these Hourglass blocks with no funky templates. I used the new Warp and Weft Collection by The Modern Quilt Studio.

How would you like to win a fat quarter bundle (8-10) of these awesome fabrics? Read this, go over to the Sew in Love with Fabric site and then let me know which of these two sets of fabrics would have been your first choice to sew with!

Here's a sneak peek at the fabrics:

Warp and Weft in Crayon Colors

Yes, I know there are gray and black and red crayons! But I only wanted the bright colors for my project. Go see it!

I put aside these grays (and red) for another quilt

I show how to make a set of blocks in Warp and Weft. It is a technique I've used for almost 20 years and I've made several quilts with it. I call it Yikes! Those Stripes!

My first Yikes! quilt from 2001

A second quilt (also in my Etsy pattern) was made with some bright Lakehouse fabrics. I called it Big Top Stripes because the fabrics reminded me of a circus tent!

Big Top Stripes

You can find my pattern for two sizes of quilts here: Yikes! Those Stripes (Etsy shop).

But first, go visit the Sew In Love With Fabric post for today to see how easy it is to make these blocks! Come back here and MAKE SURE you leave your email in case you win the FQ bundle. Contest is over at midnight Friday January 18. Contest restricted to USA.

Lakeland 2019 Sewing Expo Classes

We're back! And I am bringing several new classes for the four days I'll be in sunny Florida.

The first one is an all day class in what's called "More the Day Before." The New York Beauty is vintage updated with today's piecing using foundations - no funky templates. The center Dogwood Blossom blocks (7-1/2" finished size) are foundation pieced and then we set in the curves. The Dogtooth borders are also foundation pieced to get those awesome sharp points. The four corner Lone Stars are quick rotary cut for - you guessed it! - foundation piecing!

New York Beauty, quilted by Jane Hauprich

1. Wednesday March 13, 9am - 5pm: New York Beauty

Debby has done it again, with classic blocks made simple and fool-proof. Conquer your fear of curves and points with this no-fail New York Beauty, updated with today’s fabrics and techniques. If you can sew a straight line, you can make this quilt. Using Debby’s Strip-EZ method of paper piecing, you can easily and confidently sew really sharp points, every single time! Set the blocks into the gently curved background units, surround with simple paper pieced Dogtooth borders and Lemoyne Stars and see how simple and fun paper piecing can be. Impress yourself! 

Just a sample of those Dogtooth border strips in other colors

Pattern/kit contains well-illustrated, multi-page directions, master patterns for all three distinct units and several foundations to get you started!

2. Thursday March 14, 8:30 am - 11:30 am: Bubbles Quilt

Now you can make a hexagon quilt without y-seams! A real scrap buster project, this is a perfect way to use all the leftover 2 ½” jelly roll strips in your stash. Everything is pieced in vertical rows, so it’s easy to make this as big as you wish once you see how easy the technique is. Quilt size as shown: 41” x 51”. 

The Bubbles Quilt

Pattern/kit contains well-illustrated, multi-page directions AND an acrylic half-hexagon template for ease of cutting!

3. Thursday March 14, 1pm - 4 pm: Pickle Dish Quilt

Piecing curves is easy!  Use foundation techniques and gentle curves in large size units to create this relaxed variation of the Double Wedding Ring quilt.  Add the center teardrop, squares and concave background pieces for 11-1/4 inch blocks.  Make four blocks for a wall quilt, or sixteen for a bigger lap sized quilt.  Or, think modern and use a few blocks with lots of solid color background for a dramatic quilt of your own design.  Skill level: Intermediate (must have some paper piecing skills).

The first sample is 4 blocks in black, red and white. Our class focuses on making a 4 block quilt.

Pickle Dish Quilt

Here is a single block in scrappy, bright colors:

Single Pickle Dish block

And one more:

Single Pickle Dish block

And four of these blocks together:

Four Pickle Dish blocks (22" x 22"

And just to inspire you (because I couldn't stop piecing)! Here are 16 blocks and borders for an awesome scrappy finish.

16 block Pickle Dish quilt (58" x 58")

4. Friday March 15, 8:30 - 11:30 am: Machine Quilting, Basics and Beyond

Start your quilting experience on the right foot --- with Debby’s liberating, beyond-straight-lines, feed-dogs-down process. You’ll enjoy her simple methods for taking your stitches beyond beginners’ meanders and loops. In the dozen years she’s been teaching beginning machine quilting, Debby’s students have been most comfortable following shapes, and so she gives you lots of practice time during class to use stencil shapes and one of her favorites, freezer paper shapes. Discussion includes quilting blocks (no matter the size) and borders, and a treasure trove of samples to illustrate how dynamic her KISS (Keep It Small and Simple) quilting style can be for you, too.

5. Friday March 15, 1-4pm: Big Block Palm Quilt

Recreate this vintage Palm block in a 10 inch size without weird templates. Experience the trick in class: it’s paper pieced in ONE section, using an off-center Log Cabin technique. Amazing! Make 8 blocks and learn how to set them on point to create this 42 x 56 inch quilt. Pre-cutting of your fabrics before class gives you a head start!

Big Block Palm Quilt: 42" x 56"

And can we see a few other ways to use these blocks? These will not be patterns for the class, but just wanted you to be inspired.

Four Palm Blocks set on point

And I really went crazy here and pieced 16 blocks and set them into my "When 4 Becomes 5" setting. This is one block that I've made several quilts with.

16 Block quilt using the Palm block

6. Saturday March 16, 8:30 am - 11:30 am: Dogwood Blossom

This updated, popular vintage pattern is made doable with paper piecing, for reliably achieving all those sharp points! Learn how easy it is to sew curved pieces to the foundation arcs, and how to set the 12 blocks on-point with perfectly cut triangles. Choose your own color palette and precut your strips for an adventure in piecing curves with accuracy. Block Size: 7 inch. Quilt Size: 37 x 37 inch.

Dogwood Blossom

And let's see a few others. This one was made around 2003 and was stolen in 2005. This is the first time I drafted and stitched the Dogwood Blossom (with a little extra 1/4 donut shape added). I miss this little quilt.

My first Dogwood Blossom quilt

And another one I had published in a quilt magazine about 12 years ago:

Dogwood Blossom in brights

I hope you'll consider joining me at the Lakeland Sewing Expo for some exciting classes. And let's just think about all that sunshine and warm temps we'll be experiencing. Sure beats the snow and cold we have here today!

Red Hat is Coming!

I wasn't going to offer a Block of the Month for 2019 as I was overwhelmed with my move in December (and husband's surgery and then Christmas). And since Craftsy has suspended all pattern activity on my shop (they left me with 4 patterns, so I'm not totally shut down), I had no way to offer them for free.

I had to think of a different way to get these out. I will NOT offer them via a Facebook page (as someone suggested). Not everyone online participates in Facebook and I can't keep track of who gets it and how many downloads there are. My patterns, my rules!

I've opened a new shop on Etsy and these will be offered through there at $1 per pattern. Etsy charges me for transactions, so I'm certainly not going to get rich!

Here's the first one. I made this for my guild president's quilt. It is my own pattern which I've had published in a few of my Block a Day calendars.

Red Hat: 9" finished

Here is one of the digital patterns I published in a past calendar:

Stepping Out Quilt

I'm almost finished making these blocks. They will be red, purple and a little bit of gold. What do you think?

I will include this bonus pattern in a new size. Yes, I did offer this free last year but it has since been taken off. I did discover someone had taken this EXACT design (same colors, even) and digitized it for embroidery and was selling it! I had to send her a stern letter asking her to remove that pirated work (or my lawyer would be contacting her). Whew! What a month I've had.

Here are few sneak peeks at what I've planned.

Getting ready to stitch down my umbrella:

Red Hat Umbrella

And the first part of the glove. It still needs a cuff and three little buttons. I took this photo to show the first step.

Red Hat Glove, first step

Are you game? Do you like simple appliqué? I'm making four of those shoes and I ran out of the red fabric. Two of them will be blue.

I'm hoping to launch this before the first of February. The patterns will be in pdf format and include a color photo of each block. I will also give fabric supplies for making this - both the blocks and the info for the quilt.

I'll announce it here first. Now, go look for your reddest fabric!

Twisted Hexagons and a New Pattern

This was a popular workshop several years ago and I still continue to make these quilts. I love to fussy cut the center motifs and these Corsage fabrics (Kaffe Fassett) were just calling out to me to be front-and-center for a Twisted Hexagon block. What do you think?

I cut out a freezer paper hexagon and then removed the center so I could center my motif. Ironed the freezer paper "window" onto the fabric and cut out.

Freezer paper template for a 6" (finished) hexagon

Motif centered inside a 6-1/2" freezer paper window

Then I selected some fabrics for my half-hexagons. I have a lot of usable scraps that work well with these Corsage fabrics. I cut 3 half-hexagons of one print and 3 of another.

Whole hexagon and 6 half-hexagons

 Here's another set:

Whole hexagon and 6 half-hexagons

 And what does one block look like?

Twisted Hexagon block. Finishes to 12" high by 13-1/2" wide

There are NO y-seams. This is pieced in a log cabin type manner. The key is to use only a partial seam with the first half-hexagon. Then after the last half-hexagon is added, you complete the first seam. (Now you know my secret!)

Yes, you say, BUT - how do you sew 12 blocks together without a y-seam? Think DIAGONAL rows. You combine rotary cut triangles and half triangles together with these Twisted Hexagon blocks DIAGONALLY into horizontal rows.

Now let's see the quilt:

First, on the frame when it was quilted by Lee Taylor at the Sew Lovely Shop.

A quilt is not a quilt until it's quilted!

Here's a shot of it before quilting, so you can see all the colors.

Twisted Hexagons Quilt: 57" x 64"

There are NO y-seams in this quilt. The blocks are set with those light gray triangles and sewn with DIAGONAL seams. Four horizontal rows of 3 blocks. No pulling of the hair with this!

As you may know, my Craftsy shop was downgraded from 124 patterns to only 4. At least I still have a presence there, but I had to open an Etsy shop and I'm slowly adding my patterns there. You can find this Twisted Hexagon quilt pattern there.

Thanks for stopping by.

Atlanta 2019 Sewing Expo Classes

Happy New Year! I wish all my quilting and sewing friends a year full of fabric, thread and beautiful quilting creations. I am my happiest when sitting at my sewing machine making something new. I like taking the ideas in my head and making samples for new classes.

The Atlanta Sewing Expo is coming March 6 - 9 (Wednesday - Saturday). I am teaching 4 classes and I hope you will consider taking one or more (if this is in your geographic area, of course!)

The Wednesday class is called "More the Day Before" and I am teaching my New York Beauty.
Wednesday, March 6 from 9 am to 5 pm:

What do you think? You've seen this quilt before. I finished sewing the quilt top 9 years ago, never having the courage to quilt it myself. I even took those Dogtooth borders off because another teacher saw the irregular, mismatched rows at the bottom and thought I had to remake them.

You can read the sad post here.

But then I put on my big girl pants and decided to listen to the voices in my head and not only put the borders back on, but make a few more of these blocks! Read about THAT here!

New York Beauty (quilted by Jane Hauprich)

This New York Beauty is all paper pieced. There are 3 units: the center Dogwood Blossom blocks, the Dogtooth borders and the corner Lone Stars. The supply list even has a coloring chart for you to plan your own!

Can I show you some of the Dogtooth row units in another color way? I'm using some Kaffe Fassett scraps and a pale gray background fabric.

Paper pieced Dogtooth border units

Here's another alternate setting using the Dogwood Blossom blocks. This is not part of the class but I will show you how easy it is to make these blocks with bright, happy scraps! Go read the previous post about even more quilts using these units!

Using only one of the three units from the New York Beauty quilt

2. Thursday, March 7, 8:30 - 11:30 am: Machine Quilting, Basics & Beyond - http://www.sewingexpo.com/Events/Atlanta,GA/AtlantaClassDetail/tabid/1652/EventID/153/ClassID/12435/Default.aspx

Start your quilting experience on the right foot --- with Debby’s liberating, beyond-straight-lines, feed-dogs-down process. You’ll enjoy her simple methods for taking your stitches beyond beginners’ meanders and loops. In the dozen years she’s been teaching beginning machine quilting, Debby’s students have been most comfortable following shapes, and so she gives you lots of practice time during class to use stencil shapes and one of her favorites, freezer paper shapes. Discussion includes quilting blocks (no matter the size) and borders, and a treasure trove of samples to illustrate how dynamic her KISS (Keep It Small and Simple) quilting style can be for you, too.

3. Thursday, March 7, 1 - 4 pm:  The Pickle Dish Quilt - http://www.sewingexpo.com/Events/Atlanta,GA/AtlantaClassDetail/tabid/1652/EventID/153/ClassID/12436/Default.aspx

Here's the Four Block quilt version that is the basis of the class:

The Pickle Dish (actually, a fat Double Wedding Ring)

Piecing curves is easy!  Use foundation techniques and gentle curves in large size units to create this relaxed variation of the Double Wedding Ring quilt.  Add the center teardrop, squares and concave background pieces for 11-1/4 inch blocks.  Make four blocks for a wall quilt, or sixteen for a bigger lap sized quilt.  Or, think modern and use a few blocks with lots of solid color background for a dramatic quilt of your own design.  Skill level: Intermediate (must have some paper piecing skills). Bring your own fabric: see supply list for details

And you may be inspired to make a larger version:

16 Block Pickle Dish quilt

4. Friday, March 8, 8:30 - 11:30 am: Diamonds and Hexagons for English Paper Piecing

English Paper Piecing is a great take-along hand piecing project, perfect for making traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden (GFG) blocks – and more! Discover simple diamonds, which, when combined with the hexagons, offer exciting possibilities for altogether new blocks adding a creative dimension to your design options. Debby’s collection of samples is a treasure trove of inspiration, where you’ll see all sorts of ways to use your hexagons and diamonds in a variety of settings and projects. Your kit contains fabric, card stock hexagon and diamond shapes in 2 sizes, needle and thread.

Let's see some of the blocks we will explore:

Star Bouquet uses a hexagon, diamonds and jewels

And a "filled out" Grandmother's Flower Garden Block. This uses seven 2" hexagons and 6 diamonds. Isn't she lovely? Our class kits will have a variety of fabrics, card stock papers in various shapes to make several blocks. We will even have needle and thread!

What about a star made from 12 diamonds? These 3 stars eventually were joined with 4 others to make my Seven Sisters quilt

Stars made using 12 diamonds

And because I introduce you to the jewel shape, you will learn how easy it is to make HEARTS!

We will explore how easy it is to make EPP hearts!

This hands-on class with no machines is VERY popular, and you may want to reserve your spot without too much delay. I bring a LOT of samples to inspire you, too.

Hope to see you there!